Transport devices with endless belts or chains are commonly used in technology as conveyors. A further application of such transport devices can be found in the foundry industry in which, for example, the rolling members of the device may include a rolling member body having one or more cooling blocks so that the rolling members form the cooling elements of a casting caterpillar.
Casting devices of this type are known as so-called caterpillar-type mold casting machines and are, according to American terminology, called “machines with caterpillar mold” and also “block casters.”
By way of a drive, the blocks circulate as endless caterpillars around a machine body, one design including two machine bodies opposite each other which are positioned in such a way that the distance between the walls facing one another in the mold corresponds to the thickness of the strand to be cast, taking into consideration the shrinking of the molten materials as they solidify.
Another design is distinguished by the fact that the machine includes only one machine body around which a caterpillar circulates, and the melt is poured onto the caterpillar where it continuously solidifies into a strand. In this instance, the solidified strand is preferably covered by a gas shrouding to prevent unwanted oxidation on the free upper side of the solidified melt.
Methods and devices for this purpose have already been developed in the penultimate century and the last century. Reference is made to the books by E. Hermann, “Handbuch des Stranggiessens” (“Handbook on Continuous Casting”), 1958, and “Handbook on Continuous Casting,” 1980 (Aluminium Verlag Düsseldorf). Thus, among other types, casting machines were also designed in which the casting mold, where the melt solidifies, is formed by strung-together metal blocks extending over the width of the casting mold.
In order to minimize friction between the solidifying casting material and the casting mold, the blocks move along with the solidifying strand at the same speed until they reach the end of the casting mold, where they are detached from the strand and are directed, for example, by means of chain wheels or arcuate running paths to the rear of the machine body and are, after undergoing a change of direction once more, guided back to the inlet of the casting mold.
A casting machine, the cooling elements of which form the wall of a casting mold on the straight portions of the casting caterpillars, is known from WO 2005/068108 LAMEC. This known casting machine includes two casting caterpillars, each of the two casting caterpillars forming a wall of the casting mold and each casting caterpillar being made up of a plurality of endless cooling blocks connected to one another. The cooling blocks are installed on carrier elements, which are mounted on chains and thus are movably connected to one another like links of a chain. For this purpose, the cooling blocks hold, by way of stationary magnets, the supporting members on the chains, from which they would fall down because of gravity. The chain links are provided at their junctions with rollers rolling on guide paths. This known molding machine, however, has the disadvantage that, in particular, significant friction losses are caused by the chain joints under load owing to the caterpillar drive.